This collection of rare photographs of London, spanning from the dark days of the Blitz to the triumphant celebrations of VE Day, were taken in Dufaycolor, a little-known photography process. They give another perspective on the period between 1943 and …
John F. Kennedy was born into a rich, politically connected Boston family of Irish-Catholics. He and his eight siblings enjoyed a privileged childhood of elite private schools, sailboats, servants, and summer homes. During his childhood and youth, "Jack…
In the spring of 1906 San Francisco was a city boasting 410,000 inhabitants — a world-class metropolis whose citizens, at the dawn of a new century, looked forward with a sense of civic pride and growing confidence. San Francisco’s very existence was th…
Major Eric Bonde was part of the Swedish UN mission to Congo during the Congo Crisis. He was probably shot by Baluba warriors that time used a lot of old muzzleloaded rifles/muskets (not as powerful as more modern rifles). After given first aid he retur…
On March 3, 1913, over 5,000 women marched down Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, D.C. for universal women’s suffrage. The event was scheduled on the day before President Woodrow Wilson's inauguration to "march in a spirit of protest against the presen…
The picture depicts a liberated Czech political inmate pointing an identifying and accusing finger at a Nazi guard who was especially cruel towards the prisoners in Buchenwald camp. According to the Buchenwald Camp museum site: "Zdének Syrovátka, a Czec…
Isolation was a long American tradition. Since the days of George Washington, Americans struggled to remain protected by the mighty oceans on its border. When European conflicts erupted, as they frequently did, many in the United States claimed exceptio…
Lewis Hine, a photographer for the National Child Labor Committee, captured photos of some of the children who made up the US labor force between 1908 and 1924. Hine traveled throughout the US, documenting children working in factories, fields, and at h…
Mount St. Helens erupted on May 18, 1980. The volcano, located in southwestern Washington, used to be a beautiful symmetrical cone about 9,600 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level. The eruption, which removed the upper 1,300 feet (396 meters) of the summ…
The decisive year was 1968. In the early morning of 30 January, Vietcong forces launched the Tet Offensive, named for the Vietnamese holiday then being observed. In coordinated attacks throughout South Vietnam, the Vietcong assaulted major urban areas a…
On May 07, 1954, Viet Minh forces won the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and ended French involvement in Indochina. This victory led to the Geneva Conference where the French and Viet Minh negotiated a ceasefire agreement. (Note: the other part of this photo c…
Around 1939, when World War II began, the United Kingdom imported two-thirds of its food, all of which had to be shipped over oceans teeming with German U-boats. The Ministry of Food did not want to risk the lives of sailors for food that would be waste…
Erected in the dead of night on August 13, 1961, the Berlin Wall (known as Berliner Mauer in German) was a physical division between West Berlin and East Germany. Its purpose was to keep disaffected East Germans from fleeing to the West. When the Berlin…
New York Central's breathtaking Grand Central Terminal (or GCT) is a New York City landmark and world-famous station. It was built during the Golden Age of rail travel and exemplified the power and scope railroads wielded at that time. While the termina…
On 27 June 1953, the United Nations Command (UNC) and North Korean Communist forces signed an armistice ending three years of fighting in Korea. Although the American-led UNC failed to win the entire peninsula, it successfully repelled Communist attacks…
Operation Barbarossa (Unternehmen Barbarossa) was the German codename for Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, which commenced on June 22, 1941. It was to be the turning point for the fortunes of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich, i…
The Second World War changed the United States for women, and women in turn transformed their nation. Over three hundred fifty thousand women volunteered for military service, while twenty times as many stepped into civilian jobs, including positions pr…
The second part of the American Civil War photo collection covers the people of the Civil War: the generals, slaves, civilians, politicians, and soldiers that lived through those turbulent years. For other parts: The American Civil War in pictures (part…
After Pearl Harbor, the Japanese quickly gained control over a huge area of the Pacific, from the Philippines to Burma to the Aleutians to the Solomons. While the Japanese enjoyed the advantage of interior lines of communication, they had somewhat overe…
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 culminating in the Tiananmen Square Massacre were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in the People's Republic of China (PRC) between April 15 and June 4, 1989. They were mainly led by Beijing st…